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Saturday, 20 September 2014

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ICE #Excerpt by @TheobaldSprague #Climate #Divorce #Adventure

One
of the main objectives for the trip and documentary was to come away
with a fairly precise understanding as to the state of environmental
affairs. I’m sorry to say that in this I failed. But I have an excuse.
The heft of Mother Nature’s intentions was introduced to us far sooner
and to a much larger degree than ever anticipated and became a very
large part of our daily lives. By the time we got to The Passage, the
scope and aim of the trip was simply to finish in one piece. The time
planned for interviews and casual observations had turned into a race
against the seasonal clock and we had to be satisfied with the few
interviews that we got. Quickly the story of the trip changed focus from
overview and observation to not getting hampered by the elements.

To
have missed some planned interviews and time spent among the various
communities in exchange for surviving the ordeal was fine with me.
There’s a saying that in the 1800s, those hearty souls who took a
stagecoach journey across the United States started off with great
excitement and anticipation of all that they would see and encounter. By
the end, they were just happy to reach their destinations alive. Never
was it as true as with our trip to and through the Northwest Passage
that summer.

The
second area I wanted to investigate and learn from was the potential of
commercial shipping through The Passage. What I learned from those I
interviewed was more focused and defined compared to their beliefs on
global warming. While some small commercial shipping does currently
exist and some more will certainly start up, all of whom I spoke with
felt that the large-scale supertanker-type of shipping would never
happen.

I
was told that when the area is frozen, perhaps more than three-quarters
of the year, it provides not only migratory routes but ice roads as
well. To one extent or another, all of the communities from the smallest
fishing camps to larger ones like Cambridge Bay depend on these ice
roads in and out of their area. Any interest in larger commercial
shipping would meet great resistance.

The
Northwest Passage is, for the most part, an uncharted area. When we
were able to take soundings in some locations, the bottom would be ten-
feet deep, then drop to perhaps a hundred feet, then come back up again
to ten feet, all in the stretch of perhaps a quarter-mile.

It’s
my feeling—as well as that of many of those who live in the Nunavut
Territories—that if commercial concerns want to use this shortcut
between the two major oceans, there would have to be extensive surveying
and dredging to accommodate their needs, perhaps negating some of the
immediate profits to be found. In dealing with the ice, shipping will
find it to be completely unpredictable and each year it would present
its own grave challenges.

Without
the promises of immediate profits, I don’t see these concerns to have a
large concentration span. Again, these are just my thoughts based on
observations by the few who live up there and are by no means steeped in
feasibility studies and corporate research.

One
area that doesn’t seem to grab the headlines as much as global warming
or potential shipping, but to me holds a far more frightening potential
for disaster, is that of the natural resources to be found in and around
The Passage.

The
exploration of lucrative natural resources just under the surface is
something that I feel could destroy one of the most delicate and
pristine ecosystems on our planet. There are five Arctic powers vying
for dominance: Russia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, and the United States.
Unlike Antarctica, there is very little paperwork in place delineating
which nation has what claim to which area. Far too complex to try to
break down in this writing, suffice it to say it’s a bit like the Old
West, all trying to stake a claim via interpreting antiquated laws and
rulings to their benefit.

A sailor and his family’s harrowing and inspiring story of their attempt to sail the treacherous Northwest Passage.

Sprague
Theobald, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and expert sailor with
over 40,000 offshore miles under his belt, always considered the
Northwest Passage–the sea route connecting the Atlantic to the
Pacific–the ultimate uncharted territory. Since Roald Amundsen completed
the first successful crossing of the fabled Northwest Passage in 1906,
only twenty-four pleasure craft have followed in his wake. Many more
people have gone into space than have traversed the Passage, and a
staggering number have died trying. From his home port of Newport, Rhode
Island, through the Passage and around Alaska to Seattle, it would be
an 8,500-mile trek filled with constant danger from ice, polar bears,
and severe weather.

What Theobald couldn’t have known was just how life-changing his journey
through the Passage would be. Reuniting his children and stepchildren
after a bad divorce more than fifteen years earlier, the family embarks
with unanswered questions, untold hurts, and unspoken mistrusts hanging
over their heads. Unrelenting cold, hungry polar bears, and a haunting
landscape littered with sobering artifacts from the tragic Franklin
Expedition of 1845, as well as personality clashes that threaten to tear
the crew apart, make The Other Side of the Ice a harrowing story of
survival, adventure, and, ultimately, redemption.

(TO WATCH THE OFFICIAL HD TEASER FOR “The Other Side of The Ice” [book and documentary] PLEASE GO TO:VIMEO.COM/45526226)